One of the important applications of the present invention resides in the cold switching of short, very high current RF pulses, particularly applicable to solid state Loran-C transmitters and the like. Such transmitters, in preferred form, consist of a number (8-64) of half-cycle generators connected in parallel as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,001,598 of common assignee. The output of these generators is connected to a coupling/output network. To obtain high reliability, the coupling/output network is redundant, and the switching from one coupling/output network to the other is to be performed by the high-power switch of this invention--this being appropriate when a generator module has failed, or otherwise is to be bypassed.
To prevent current arcing, high contact pressure over the full contact surface area is required. In the past, however, this contact pressure has been obtained by spring loading the mating contact surfaces. This spring loading has resulted in high contact insertion forces, and excess contact wear has had to be tolerated. When the switch is in the open position, indeed, a large airgap is required to withstand the high open switch voltage. The combination of long contact travel and high insertion force has, therefore, in the past, resulted in not only excessive contact wear but also a relatively slow-operating switch.
By eliminating contact spring loading and using a novel link/bus compression construction, the switch of this invention has been found remarkably to eliminate both of these problems and, in addition, to provide superior electrical surface contact and to enable far more rapid switching than has heretofore been attainable in these applications.